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| Product type | Crisp |
|---|---|
| Owner | Walkers |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Related brands | French Fries Quavers Wotsits |
| Markets | United Kingdom |
| Previous owners | The Smith's Snackfood Company |
Squares formerly known as Square and Square Crisps are a British brand of square-shaped crisps made by Walkers, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. They were originally made by The Smith's Snackfood Company.
The crisps have been around since at least the 1980s and went under the name of Square Crisps. [1] Several of their advertisements featured the comedian Lenny Henry and were marketed with slogans such as "more of a crunch than a crisp" and "the crisp that isn't a crisp". [2] Following PepsiCo's acquisition of both Walkers and Smiths in 1989 [3] Square Crisps were renamed to simply Square, and labelled as potato snacks.
The product remained under the Smiths brand years after its fellow products Quavers and Monster Munch were moved to the Walkers brand. In January 2001, Walkers announced to relaunch Square, and would transition it from the Smiths brand to the Walkers brand. [4] The name of the crisps was changed to Squares shortly afterward. [5]
The design of Squares packets have changed several times. [6] The design during the 1980s emphasised that they had 25% lower fat than regular crisps and the packaging of the salt and vinegar Squares was a much lighter shade of blue than what is currently used. [7] During the 1990s and early 2000s, the most noticeable change apart from the change in company and name was the addition of a jagged border around the logo. [8] In the late 2000s, the logo and design of Squares was briefly changed again. [9] In the 2010s a new design for Squares was introduced which took aspects from other designs and is similar to the current design introduced in 2019 except for the jagged border and squares pattern. [10] The colours of the crisps packets differ from Walkers traditional colours, with the salt & vinegar packets being blue instead of green and the cheese & onion packets being green instead of blue. [11]
They are produced in three flavours: salt & vinegar, ready salted, and cheese & onion. [12] They are also available in multipacks, with salt & vinegar flavoured Squares being the most popular. [13] Comedian Richard Osman wrote in The World Cup of Everything that Squares were invented because "scientists were concerned that children weren't hurting the roofs of their mouths as often as they should be". [14]
A potato chip or crisp is a thin slice of potato that has been deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetizer. The basic chips are cooked and salted; additional varieties are manufactured using various flavorings and ingredients including herbs, spices, cheeses, other natural flavors, artificial flavors, and additives.
Hula Hoops are a snack food made out of potatoes and corn in the shape of short, hollow cylinders. Created by KP Snacks in the United Kingdom in 1973, they are sold in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa. Hula Hoops are also sold in Belgium under the "Croky" tag, made in the UK but marketed and distributed from Mouscron, Belgium. In France, Hula Hoops are produced by Vico.
Quavers are a deep-fried potato-based British snack food. Launched in the UK in 1968, they were originally made by Smith's. Since 1997 they have been produced by Walkers. The name comes from the musical note, quaver.
Tayto Snacks is a crisps and popcorn manufacturer in Ireland, founded by Joe Murphy in May 1954 and owned by German snack food company Intersnack. It owns several brands, including its leading product of Tayto Crisps for which it invented the first flavoured crisp production process. The first seasoned crisps produced were Cheese & Onion. Companies worldwide sought to buy the rights to Tayto's technique. Tayto crisps are a cultural phenomenon throughout Republic of Ireland, so much so that in November 2010, Tayto opened their own theme park called "Tayto Park" near Ashbourne.
Ruffles is an American brand of crinkle-cut potato chips. The Frito Company acquired the rights to Ruffles brand potato chips in 1958 from its creator, Bernhardt Stahmer, who had adopted the trademark in 1948. Frito merged with H.W. Lay & Co. in 1961 to form Frito-Lay. The Ruffle name was used as Ruffles Lays when the product was introduced for the first time in India in 1995 to late 90s.
Wotsits is a British brand of cheese flavoured corn puffs sold first by Golden Wonder and now by Walkers Crisps. The most common form is the "Really Cheesy" flavour of corn puffs. Other shapes and flavours have also been sold, including: Wotsits Giants, Wotsits Flaming Hot, Wotsits Sizzling Steak, Wotsits Prawn Cocktail and Wotsits Crunchy. The brand name in the singular ("Wotsit") refers to an individual corn puff. It is an allusion to the slang term "whatsit", a placeholder name, to which it is phonetically identical in British speech.
Golden Wonder is a British company that manufactures snack foods, most notably crisps. These include Ringos, Golden Wonder and Transform-A-Snack. Since 2006, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Northern Irish company Tayto, purchased from administration.
The Smith's Snackfood Company is a British-Australian snack food brand owned by the American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation PepsiCo. It is best known for its brand of potato crisps. The company was founded by Frank Smith and Jim Viney in the United Kingdom in 1920 as Smiths Potato Crisps Ltd, originally packaging a twist of salt with its crisps in greaseproof paper bags which were sold around London. The dominant brand in the UK until the 1960s when Golden Wonder took over with Cheese & Onion, Smith's countered by creating Salt & Vinegar flavour which was launched nationally in 1967.
Twisties are a type of cheese curl corn-based snack food product, available mainly in Australia, and other Oceanian countries such as Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji, the Southeast Asian countries Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei, and the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. They are also available in Europe, but marketed as "Fonzies", and in France as "Belin Croustilles". It was launched in 1950 by the General Foods Corporation. The brand name is owned by The Smith's Snackfood Company. While originally an Australian-owned company, Smith's was acquired in August 1998 by Frito-Lay, the second largest producer of snack foods in Australia, which in turn is owned by American multi-national PepsiCo. In Malaysia, Twisties is a product of Mondelēz International, after having been a part of Danone and later, Kraft Foods previously. In Thailand, the Twisties trademark is owned by Lay's, which like The Smith's Snackfood Company, is owned by PepsiCo.
Thins is one of the largest brands of savoury snack potato chips currently available in Australia, and is owned by Snack Brands Australia. The snack food is a thinly-sliced variety of potato chip (crisp) and comes in a variety of flavours, including Chicken, Original, Salt & Vinegar, BBQ Ribs,Cheese & Onion, Sour Cream & Chives and Light & Tangy. Thins compete chiefly with Smith's Thinly Cut, another thinly sliced potato chip, along with various crinkle cut brands.
Humpty Dumpty Snack Foods is an American food company, operating as a subsidiary of Old Dutch Foods, that packages and sells snack foods. The company is named after the nursery rhyme character and features the character as the company logo. Humpty Dumpty products are generally sold in New England, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
Monster Munch are a British baked corn snack created by Smiths in 1977 and manufactured by Walkers. They are aimed at children and widely consumed in the United Kingdom. Flavours include Roast Beef, Pickled Onion and Flamin' Hot.
KP Snacks Ltd is a British producer of branded and own-label maize-, potato-, and nut-based snacks, "Choc Dips" and nuts. The KP stands for “Kenyon Produce”. The company is based in Slough, England, UK.
Space Raiders are a British brand of corn and wheat snacks made by KP Snacks. Introduced in 1987, the alien shaped snacks are currently available in Beef, Pickled Onion, Saucy BBQ and Spicy flavours.
Bluebird Foods Ltd is a New Zealand division of the U.S.-based PepsiCo corporation, that manufactures snack foods, cereals and muesli bars. All snacks are manufactured at the Bluebird Foods factory in Wiri, Auckland.
Tudor Crisps was a brand of potato crisps produced by Tudor Food Products. The business was started in Sunderland during 1947, and it supplied crisps to the North East of England and Scotland regions, claiming two thirds of the market in these regions. The company was purchased by Smiths Crisps in 1960. The brand continued under the ownership of Smith's by General Mills, Associated Biscuits and Nabisco, but was ended after PepsiCo purchased Smith's in 1989, and concentrated on the Walkers brand.
McCoy's is a brand of crinkle-cut crisps made in the United Kingdom by KP Snacks. It was first produced in 1985 and is marketed under the slogan "The Real McCoy's – Accept No Imitations", exploiting the Scottish idiom "the real McCoy". McCoy's is the third biggest brand in the bagged crisps market, with 5 million packets consumed each week and nearly a third of all UK households consuming the product. It was once promoted by United Biscuits "as the only overtly male-targeted crisp brand".
Walkers Snack Foods Limited, trading as Walkers, is a British snack food manufacturer mainly operating in the UK and Ireland. The company is best known for manufacturing potato crisps and other (non-potato-based) snack foods. In 2013, it held 56% of the British crisp market. Walkers was founded in 1948 in Leicester, England, by Henry Walker. The Walkers family sold the business in 1970 to American food producer, Standard Brands. In 1989, Walkers was acquired by Lay's owner, Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo.
Real Crisps is a crisp brand. The company was founded in 1997, and expanded over the following decade to become a business turning over £15 million a year. In 2007, it was purchased by the Northern Ireland-based crisp manufacturer Tayto. In 2012, a fire caused the destruction of the 65,000 square feet (6,000 m2) Real Crisp factory in Crumlin, Caerphilly. There are a range of flavours produced, and the company ran a limited edition political themed range prior to the 2010 United Kingdom general election.
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